Breaking down Jaguars’ offensive, defensive schemes

The Detroit Lions (8-1) will take on the Jacksonville Jaguars (2-8) in Week 11 inside Ford Field in downtown Detroit. This is the third season in the Jaguars organization for head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor, but Jacksonville moved on from defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell this offseason and hired Ryan Nielsen to replace him in 2024.

Let’s take a look at the Jaguars’ coaching staff and how their offensive and defensive schemes operate.

Jaguars head coach: Doug Pederson

A former NFL quarterback, Pederson played for five different teams over his 14-year career. During his first stint in Green Bay, Pederson spent two seasons learning under Andy Reid (his quarterback’s coach) and when Reid accepted the head coaching job in Philadelphia, he brought Pederson along with him to be his starting quarterback. It wouldn’t last, but over his career, Pederson played in 100 games, including making 17 starts.

After retiring from the NFL, Pederson made an immediate move to start coaching and eventually joined Reid on the Eagles coaching staff in 2009. After four years of working his way up the ladder in Philadelphia, Pederson followed Reid to Kansas City, where he worked as the Chiefs offensive coordinator. In 2016, Pederson headed back to Philadelphia, this time as the Eagles head coach (replacing Chip Kelly), and would go on to win a Super Bowl during the 2017-18 season. Pederson’s time with the Eagles would only last three more seasons before he was fired. After taking a year away from coaching, Pederson was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars, with the hopes that he could pick up the pieces from the Urban Meyer disaster.

Offensive coordinator: Press Taylor

Taylor, also a former college quarterback, joined the Eagles coaching staff under Chip Kelly and was retained by Pederson when he took over. He would spend the next five seasons coaching quarterbacks under Pederson and was largely credited with installing the “Philly Special” trick play in the Super Bowl. While Taylor briefly joined Frank Reich (former Eagles OC) and the Colts during Pederson’s gap year in 2021, Taylor re-joined Pederson in Jacksonville in 2022, this time as his offensive coordinator.

Pederson/Taylor’s West Coast offensive scheme

With both Pederson and Taylor coming from the same coaching tree, we see a similar philosophical approach to offense, stemming from Andy Reid’s West Coast scheme he used with the Eagles. That commonality has spilled over into play-calling duties, with Pederson and Taylor splitting play-calling duties in 2022, Taylor taking them solo in 2023, and then this season, they have deflected questions about who is actually calling plays, which is a tad… unusual.

In 2022-23, Pederson was credited with bringing a “modern-day offense” to Jacksonville, and we saw the usual staples of a West Coast scheme, including heavy 11 personnel usage, bunch formations, pre-snap motion, play-action, etc. While the offense started out amongst the top in the NFL following Pederson’s arrival, it has been in a steady decline, and closer examination shows an abandonment of key principles.

The 2024 Jaguars offense lacks an identity. There is no firm foundation that they can hang their hats on, or go to when things are tough. The roster is very talented, but they are underperforming, leaving players in the locker room suggesting that they’re not working hard enough to overcome their obstacles.

Analysts have shifted the blame off the players and onto the coaching staff. Pre-snap motion has almost entirely disappeared, and play-action is sporadic (24.4%, 15th) and inconsistent. Players are not being used in a way that highlights their strengths, while coaches are failing to adjust to game flow once they move away from early game scripted plays. Critical situations have been consistently mismanaged, and the play calling has become predictable.

Look no further than their loss to the Eagles two weeks ago to see an example of the coaching staff’s struggles. Through behind-the-scenes film, we can see that second-year linebacker Nakobe Dean was anticipating a running back stutter and go route in the red zone—something the Jaguars have shown they like to run. And sure enough, when presented with the situation at the end of the game, Dean sits on the play, runs the route for the running back, and makes a game-sealing interception.

With quarterback Trevor Lawrence under center, many games have been close (six of their eight losses were by one score), but they have not been able to overcome their shortfalls this season. Currently, this offense ranks in the bottom third of the league in most offensive categories, most notably:

• Points scored per game: 20.2 (21st in NFL)
• Total yards gained: 302.9 (25th)
• 3rd down conversion rate: 33% (29th)
• Turnovers: 1.5 (25th)
• Pressures allowed: 97 (29th, per Next Gen Stats)
• Yards after catch: 992 (22nd)
• Yards after catch over expectations: 23 (31st)
• “Power” runs (got-to-have-it situations): DVOA 31st
• Time of possession: 44% offensive possession (31st)

Essentially, the Jaguars are struggling with execution and are unable to convert when they need to, which leads to a failure to sustain drives, fewer opportunities with the ball, and fewer points scored.

To make matters worse, Lawrence is injured and has already been ruled out for this game, meaning the Jaguars will again turn to Mac Jones to lead the offense. For comparison’s sake, Lawrence’s quarterback rating is 87.9 and he is averaging 7.3 yards per passing attempt, while Jones has a 47.6 quarterback rating and is averaging 4.5 yards per passing attempt.

Under Jones last week, the Jaguars scored just seven points and there was a clear drop-off when Jones and the coaches were forced to adapt beyond the scripted plays. This is also likely why, despite being in so many close games, the betting line for this week’s matchup with the Lions is nearly two touchdowns long.

Defensive coordinator: Ryan Nielsen

A defensive tackle at USC in the early 2000s, Nielsen’s NFL playing career never got off the ground and he entered coaching. After coaching at the college level for a decade and a half, Nielsen got his NFL coaching break from Sean Payton and the Saints, coaching their defensive line. Over the next four seasons, Nielsen would coach alongside Lions head coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. In 2021, when Campbell and Glenn took their positions with the Lions, Nielsen added Campbell’s now vacated assistant head coaching role to his responsibilities. When Dennis Allen was promoted to head coach in 2022, Nielsen was promoted to co-defensive coordinator (along with Kris Richard, who was originally hired to fill Glenn’s role). But after just a single season in this role, Nielsen left the Saints for a solo defensive coordinator position with the Falcons. In 2024, with a coaching change on the horizon in Atlanta, Nielsen departed for another defensive coordinator role, this one with the Jaguars.

Nielsen’s 4-3 base defensive scheme

Upon his arrival, Nielson’s first order of business was to convert the Jaguars existing 3-4 scheme (run under Mike Caldwell in 2023) into a 4-3 base scheme. With Nielsen coming from the Saints, there are a few core beliefs you’ll see that resemble the Lions.

For example, their four-man front attacks with two (or three) free-flowing linebackers underneath, and a secondary that lives in man coverage. Currently, the Jaguars run man-coverage 37.8% of the time (third most in the NFL, behind the Patriots and Lions). They also prioritize stopping the run, only allowing 4.3 yards per rushing attempt (10th), are 12th in DVOA against the run, and are the only team in the NFL with four players being credited with at least 20 run stops.

They prefer to have a versatile edge rusher on one side (Josh Hines-Allen), and a larger edge rusher opposite him (Travon Walker, Arik Armstead), who can both set the edge and rush the passer. Coming into this game, Hines-Allen has 42 pressures and Walker has 38, which combined accounts for 68% of the team’s overall pressures. Armstead has 15 pressures on the season, while defensive tackle Davon Hamilton has 14, with the remaining roster all having single-digit results. The lack of pressure from the rest of the team has resulted in inconsistencies, and the overall team pressure rate is 29.7% (29th in the NFL).

And that is the start of where Nielsen’s defense diverges from Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. When the Lions lost Aidan Hutchinson for the season, Glenn adjusted his blitzing philosophy. Pre-Hutchinson injury, the Lions blitzed around 30% of the time, but since the injury, Glenn has amped that up to 40.5%, most in the NFL since Week 7.

Meanwhile, despite Nielsen’s defense continuing to struggle with pressure, he only calls blitzes 14.6% of the time, the lowest rate in the NFL. He is essentially putting all his pressure responsibilities on his front-four and asking the secondary to hold up in man coverage for extraordinary lengths of time. We in Detroit have seen the results of this philosophy firsthand (back in 2022), and unsurprisingly the Jaguars are leaking yardage. At this time, they’re allowing 390.6 total yards per game, also the worst in the NFL.

The Jaguars’ inability to generate consistent pressure puts the secondary in a bind, and as a result, the passing defense statistics are glaringly awful.

• Passing yards per game allowed: 261.2 (30th)
• Passing yards per pass attempt: 8.0 (30th)
• Completion percentage allowed: 69.9% (31st)
• Passing touchdowns allowed: 19 (29th)
• EPA on passing attempts allowed: +0.16 (32nd)
• Yards after catch allowed: 1482 (32nd)
• Defending tight ends in passing game: DVOA 32nd

This lack of pressure also shows up on third downs, where they’re allowing teams to convert 43.6% of the time (26th), and on fourth-down, where opponents convert 61.5% of the time (20th), resulting in long drives that keep them on the field. Remember, time of possession shows the Jaguars defense is on the field 56% of the time, second most in the NFL.

With explosive plays and long drives commonplace, points allowed follow right behind. They allow red zone touchdowns 60.5% of the time (23rd), an average of three touchdowns a game (26th), and an average of 26.4 total points scored against per game (27th).

To their credit, the Jaguars defense is coming off arguably their best game of the year, keeping the Vikings out of the end zone and only allowing 12 points to be scored. They also forced three interceptions, though it’s fair to speculate if that was the result of the Jaguars’ defense being opportunistic or Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold just playing some awful football. The Jaguars defense did show more zone coverage against Minnesota, which could be a potential adjustment moving forward, but it’s hard to say at this point if they’ll deploy that against the Lions.

Overall, this defense will look familiar to Lions fans and will, at times, resemble some traits from when this regime was first installing its new philosophies—both the good and the very bad.